ADAIR, a physician distinguished by his researches in chemical physiology, was born in Ireland about the year 1748. His father, the Rev. Thomas Crawford, was the Presbyterian minister of Crumlin, near Belfast, in the county of Antrim. The family were originally from Scotland; a remote ancestor, who was a clergyman, having fled from that country to Ireland during the reign of Charles II., in order to escape the fury of religious persecution directed against all who like himself had refused to conform. The zeal which had stood so severe a test appears to have been cherished and perpetuated as an honourable inheritance in the family, which exhibited for six generations the clerical profession descending from father to son. Adair Crawford was, from his early youth, remarkable for the sweetness of his temper, the excellence of his heart, and the strength of his understanding. He received his classical education from his father; and at the age of 14 was sent to Glasgow for the prosecution of his studies. His parents intended him for the vocation of Presbyterian clergyman, but he afterwards relinquished that plan on account of the weakness of his voice. It was then proposed to him to pursue the profession of the law. He accordingly turned his attention to this new course of study, which he pursued under the guidance of the celebrated Dr Millar of Glasgow. At this period his younger brother, a student of medicine in the college of Edinburgh, persuaded him once more to change his views; and whilst they were together at their father's house he one day left him, on setting out on a journey, a human skull and a few other bones, together with Monro's book on Osteology. On his return he found, as he had expected, that Adair had already outstripped his young preceptor in accurate knowledge of the subject. It was then decided that he should return to Glasgow in the ensuing winter, for the purpose of attending the medical classes. Next winter he went to Edinburgh, still pursuing the same objects of study at that university. His views of the theory of animal heat were favourably received by the professors, and were long taught by Dr Monro in his anatomical lectures. In the ensuing spring, 1779, he went to London, where he then published the first edition of the work by which he gained so much celebrity. In the beginning of the same winter, a degree, probably an honorary one, of Doctor of Physic, was conferred upon him by the university of Glasgow. He was held in high estimation by the professors of that university, who from his long residence among them had ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with his worth and talents. It was observed by the celebrated Dr Reid, on his quitting that body, that he had left no man behind him better qualified for the professorships of Greek and of Natural Philosophy than Adair Crawford. The facility with which he acquired knowledge of every kind was, indeed, extraordinary, and Crawford appeared to be the result of the singular faculty he possessed of concentrating the whole force of his mind upon any subject to which he chose to direct his attention. He now determined upon settling in London, and soon after offered himself as candidate for one of the dispensaries, to which, after a severe contest, he succeeded in being elected physician. His talents speedily brought him forward in the philosophical world, as well as in his own profession. He was elected a member of the Royal Society, and shortly afterwards he obtained the appointment of physician to St Thomas's Hospital. In the year 1788 he published a second edition of his work, greatly corrected and improved, under the title of Experiments and Observations on Animal Heat, and the Inflammation of Combustible Bodies, being an attempt to resolve these Phenomena into a general Law of Nature. His reputation as a philosopher was now established, and procured him the notice of all the most distinguished men of science in the kingdom, and the appointment of lecturer on chemistry to the academy of Woolwich. Being led from speculation to suppose that barites might prove an efficacious article of the materia medica, he made several experiments on the effects of the muriated solution upon himself, principally with a view of determining the dose that might be taken with safety. He then applied the remedy to some bad cases of scrofula at St Thomas's Hospital, with a degree of success that raised in his mind the most sanguine expectations of its proving a specific for the cure of that intractable disease; expectations which, as has happened to so many new remedies, subsequent experience has far from realized.

Dr Crawford was now rising into great eminence as a medical practitioner; but his incessant application to the laborious duties of his profession, as well as to his philosophical pursuits, was beginning to undermine a constitution naturally weak. He was invited by the first Marquis of Lansdowne to his seat of Hardwell Cliff, near Lymington, in hopes that the change of air might have a beneficial effect upon his health. But the foundations of his disorder were too deeply laid; he gradually declined, and shortly after died at Lymington, on the 29th of July 1795.

In 1785 Dr Crawford married Miss Stone, a Devonshire lady, by whom he had four children, two sons and two daughters. His eldest son became a clergyman, the other a physician. The daughters, who were infants at his death, were principally educated under the immediate superintendence of the celebrated Miss Elizabeth Hamilton, who was first cousin to their father, and who adopted them as her heirs.

His eldest brother, the Rev. William Crawford, and the father of Dr Stewart Crawford of Bath, was a man of considerable literary attainments; he published Remarks on Lord Chesterfield's Letters, which met with success, and also Translations from Tartini, and a short History of Ireland. His second brother John was for many years a surgeon in the service of the East India Company, and published a pamphlet, showing, from a number of cases, the efficacy of calomel, conjointly with other purgatives, in the treatment of those morbid affections of the liver to which the inhabitants of India are so prone; a work which probably laid the first foundation of the practice which has since been so generally adopted. His brother Alexander was a physician at Lisburn in Ireland, and obligingly furnished the materials of the present notice.

The most illustrious works of Dr Crawford, besides that on Animal Heat, above noticed, were, a paper in the Philosophical Transactions, On the proper intake of the Human Constitution of resisting high degrees of Temperature; and another On the effect of Muriats of Barites in the Cure of certain Diseases. A posthumous work of his, On the effect of Tonics on the Animal Fibre, was edited by his brother, Dr Alexander Crawford.

He had a taste for poetry, which, however, he indulged but sparingly. An elegy which he wrote On the death of Lady Sarah Stewart, the mother of Lord Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of Londonderry, was supposed to have considerable merit, but he could never be prevailed on to publish it.